Kigali

Here in Kigali- I have a new homestay family. They are awesome! My mom and dad are in their 20's and they have a little one year old. Actually the one year old is huge because they feed babies so much here! It is awesome because my family is so young that we are more like friends hanging out!
Weird observations:
-everyone eats breakfast in their towels ( not just my family)
-everyone tries to marry you off to someone
-children make a game out of touching your white skin- because they are afraid of you!

Kigali is awesome. I love it. It is much more developed here than Uganda and it is just beautiful! It is called the land of 1000 hills, and it is just breathtaking. I have been loving it here.- but it the educational part is much harder. It is just harder material that we are studying- a genocide.

We have been visiting memorials and churches. At the churches, there are skulls in rows and bones laying out. Blood soaked clothing hangs from the walls and covers the floors. It is extremely emotional. These people sought safety in churches and instead were slaughtered.

We went to the Kigali Memorial Center yesterday and here are a few things that I read:

"A militia man came up to kill me. I was astonished because he was a friend. He used to come to our house everyday. He worked for my father and played with us. He was like a brother. I asked him why he wanted to kill me when I had done nothing to hurt him. I begged him to take pity on me. He said nothing but just hit me on the head with a machete. He had bits of wood in his hand which he stuck into my face. When he thought I was dead, he left."
Uwayisenga, age 7
- literally in this situation, friends turned on friends and family turned on family. It was a mass killing craze.

'Women and children were a direct target of the genocidaires for murder,rape and mutilation. The killers were determined to ensure that a new generation of Tutsis would never emerge."

Torture Used-- cut tendons so they could not run away and had to wait to be beaten, family members had to watch each other get raped-beaten-killed, people were thrown into latrines and rocks were thrown at them one at a time until the screaming subsided, people were buried alive.

So- I have not been sleeping well. It has been very emotionally draining to be here. But it is the most wonderful thing in the world to be traveling and learning about the place that you are in while you are in it. It is SO much more real.

Love Lauren